Page 134 of Meet Me at the Metro

“Never mind. You won’t even let me finish,” she pouts, stubbornly pulling away.

“Yeah, you’re a fucking theatre major, alright,” I laugh, amused with her dramatic display. I yank her back toward me. “Get yourhalf-naked arse back here. I’m listening. What do you want to ask me, baby?”

Her defiant stance crumbles with that last word, and her fingers dance into my hair as her body lazily relaxes between my legs again.

“Will you consider auditioning for the show’s orchestra? Please, just consider it.”

I let out an exasperated sigh. “Nora.”

“Teddy, please.”

“Don’t do that. You know why I don’t want to do it.”

“You two don’t have to be best friends. You can just be cordial.”

“Cordial,” I scoff. “That’s not going to fucking happen.”

“Why not? It could happen. We could all get along. We could all hang out. You two could be okay.Be cordial.”

“It’s not going to happen. You can’t be cordial with someone you can hardly stand being within five feet of.”

Nora sighs, and there’s so much unrest written on her face that I can tell she’s still worrying herself sick about everything that went down with Kim and Connorweeksago. She’s too considerate of others for her own good—always caring so much for others that she begins to take their stresses and emotions on as her own.

I don’t want her carrying the weight of any of my burdens. Maybe dragging her to dinner with me was a selfish, foolish thing for me to do.

“It’s been a month, Theo. You don’t think you’d feel better if you guys at least talked? You know, maybe a little morecivillythis time.”

“Absolutely not. We were nearly at each other’s throats, Nora.”

“He misses you,” she tells me softly.

I ignore how the muscle in my jaw softens.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I laugh bitterly, smothering every ounce of hope for Connor’s and my relationship.

“He does,” she whispers, running the pads of her fingers along the hard ridges of my stomach. “He feels like shit about that night.”

Jealousy rushes through my veins in a relentless and unforgiving blaze as I’m reminded how close she and Connor are; close enough that he would share parts of himself pertaining to our past that I’ve not gained the courage to confess to her myself.

I want her to know those things, but I want her to learn about those truths—ugly as they are—by hearing them from my mouth, not anyone else’s.

Not his.

“Then kindly ask Connor to tell hismummyto quit blowing up my damn phone. The piano’s staying where it is, and I’m not joining them for dinner again.”

I feel the weight of Nora’s body clamber on top of me, and so naturally, my hands find the soft curves of her hips.

“She’s still going on about the piano?”

“Of course she is.”

A considerate moment of silence settles in the room before a taunting grin pulls at the corners of her lips, and she dares to utter, “So lunch isn’t off the table then?”

“Smart arse!” I snort.

I pinch her sides and buck her off my hips before pressing her back against the tangles of sheets. As I pin her down against the bed with my hips, I tell her, “For that, I’m forcing you to eat the beans on your plate.”

I reach my long limbs toward the bedroom dresser, pulling over one of the plates of breakfast while her wiggling body protests beneath me. I hope food is enough to distract her from the conversation at hand—one I really don’t want to be having this morning. I want today to be about her and for her to focus on her audition rather than all this bullshit going on between my estranged family and me.

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